In the affiliate member category, the scientist joins the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (ABC) for a period of five years. Professors from the Gleb Wataghin Institute of Physics (IFGW) Gustavo Silva Wiederhecker and Thiago Pedro Mayer Alegre will receive diplomas for the period from 2019 to 2023. Professor Rafael Vasconcelos Ribeiro, from the Institute of Biology (IB), will receive diplomas for the period from 2018 to 2022. The ceremony will take place on Thursday afternoon, (14), during a symposium in the István Jancsó Auditorium of the Biblioteca Brasiliana Guita and José Mindlin at USP São Paulo.
In addition to the Unicamp professors, three other young scientists were elected by the São Paulo Regional Vice-Presidency as affiliate members of ABC. They are: Diogo de Oliveira Soares Pinto and Tiago Pereira da Silva from USP itself and Mateus Borba Cardoso from the National Nanotechnology Laboratory (LNNano/CNPEM). Graduates will present their research at the symposium. The program will also include a conference on the challenges facing Brazilian science. (see the programming).
ABC's objective with the diplomaization of affiliated members is to identify and encourage young people with great potential for science. Up to five researchers are chosen per region of Brazil. “I had just finished teaching a class when the email arrived from the Academy congratulating me on being elected. I was very honored. I know this means that someone realized that there was some potential in a certain individual. Now we will have five years to show that this indication was valid”, said Professor Rafael, from IB.
An agronomist, physiologist and researcher at the Campinas Agronomic Institute (IAC) for seven years, Rafael has been a professor at Unicamp since 2012, free professor in 2016. His research area addresses the interactions between plants and the environment “using plant physiology to trying to maximize the conversion of light energy into biomass or exploring the strategies that plants have to better exploit available resources”, he details.
The professor is also the magazine's first non-English editor Experimental Agriculture, CambridgeUniversity Press. "The ABC's role, in my understanding, is to guide the country's scientific and technological development through the effective participation of academics in the most varied areas of knowledge - agricultural sciences in my case, promoting the socioeconomic well-being of Brazilians combined with the conservation of our natural resources”, he highlighted.
For Professor Gustavo, the appointment represents an opportunity to meet scientists who stand out in different areas. He highlights the role of the Academy in influencing the political debate around science. “ABC becomes a spokesperson for Brazilian science, especially in times of crisis, and participating in this allows us to have a clearer vision of the challenges we need to face.”
A researcher in the area of applied physics, working in nanophotonics, Gustavo has been a professor at Unicamp since 2011. In 2009, his doctorate earned him the Capes Grand Thesis Prize in the area of Exact and Earth Sciences. “Nanophotonics is the niche of physics that looks at the propagation of light at the nanoscale. One of the questions is, for example, how we bring this revolution that happened in optical fibers, for example, into a device like a computer, a cell phone”.
Thiago Alegre has also been at Unicamp as a professor since 2011 and is part of the IFGW Device Research Laboratory (LPD) together with professor Gustavo. Both are also members of the National Institute of Science and Technology (INCT) Photonics for Optical Communications (Fotonicom). Post-Doctorate at California Institute of Technology (Caltech), is a member of the Brazilian Society of Physics, the Brazilian Society of Photonics and the Optical Society of America. Its area of expertise is integrated photonics. The researcher claims to want to delve deeper into information about the role of the Academy in political decisions as well as in relation to the dissemination of science.
